Back in 2011, network architects at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation began investigating the viability of running the organisation's modelling and simulation applications on cloud infrastructure as an alternative to its purpose-built computing cluster named Discover.

Concerns over high upfront costs and associated risks are hindering the adoption of cloud computing in the region, where only 22.2 percent of Asian cities have deployed it, according to Microsoft-CityNet research.

Concerns about data location, security and privacy risks - as well as software integration problems - mean that 7 out of 10 UK organizations spend less than 10 percent of their IT budgets on cloud services